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FILM; Back to Hong Kong, Where the Action Is

By MARK LANDLER

Published: August 13, 2000

HONG KONG—
WHEN Stanley Tong left his hometown for Hollywood in 1996, Hong Kong's film industry was headed for a crack-up as spectacular as anything in a Jackie Chan movie.

Box office revenue was plummeting, scripts were threadbare and rampant piracy was driving a whole generation of movie-watchers away from theaters. Demoralized by the grinding pace and stultifying atmosphere of Hong Kong, local filmmakers fled this former British colony faster than the British themselves.

Mr. Tong, a 40-year-old former stuntman who directed Mr. Chan in hyper-kinetic Hong Kong action films like ''Rumble in the Bronx'' (1996) and ''Police Story III: Supercop'' (1992), did not easily find success in the United States. His first American film, ''Mr. Magoo,' (1997) a $30 million Disney remake of the 1960's cartoon about a crotchety, near-sighted old goof, left audiences as befuddled as its hapless hero.

Now, Mr. Tong has returned to Hong Kong and is back on familiar ground -- shooting an action film about the Chinese police busting a smuggling ring.

''I went to America because I wanted to learn how to make Hollywood movies,'' Mr. Tong said. ''But I always wanted to come back to where I grew up. I want to make Chinese films for an international audience.''

Mr. Tong is one of several Hong Kong filmmakers who have come home this year. Some were disillusioned with the vagaries of Hollywood. Others have been lured by the new money that is sloshing around since the end of the Asian economic crisis. Still others missed the frenetic energy and anything-goes culture of making movies here. Whatever their reasons, these prodigal sons of Hong Kong cinema -- most are men -- hope to revive an industry that had been left for dead two years ago.

''There is an optimism here which hasn't existed for a long time,'' said Wouter Barendricht, a sales agent for Asian movies who runs the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum. ''People were in such shock about the state of the industry that nothing happened for several years.''

After tumbling to $100 million last year from $167 million in 1993, Hong Kong's box office receipts are likely to bounce back to $130 million this year, according to the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association. The industry will release 130 films in 2000, one-third more than last year. At its peak, in the early 1990's, this movie-mad city cranked out 230 films a year.

Hong Kong's resurgence has been driven by several factors. After two years of recession, money is pouring back into film production. Some comes from old-line Hong Kong production companies, which are restyling themselves as Internet companies and desperately need ''content.'' Some comes from Hollywood studios, like Columbia Pictures, which have set up local operations to finance Asian films.

The industry has also been helped by Hong Kong's belated crackdown on piracy. Under heavy pressure from the United States and the local film industry, the new Chinese government has raided the producers of illegally copied video compact discs. Movie executives say the campaign has worked: with bootleg VCD's drying up, people are paying to see popular films at the multiplex.

Harder to quantify, but also important, was Hong Kong's relatively smooth transition from British to Chinese rule. Local studios that had cut back their spending in 1997 out of fear that China might curtail freedoms relaxed after it became clear that Beijing did not plan to meddle in the territory.

Perhaps the most basic reason is better movies. After a long stretch of derivative action movies, Hong Kong is starting to turn out memorable, original films. It started with ''Stormriders,'' a special-effects-laden fantasy directed by Andrew Lau that was a rare hit in the doldrums of 1998. And it has extended through ''In the Mood for Love,'' a finely wrought domestic drama by Wong Kar-wai. The film won a best actor award at this year's Cannes Film Festival for Tony Leung Chiu-wai, the first for a Hong Kong actor.

Then there is ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,'' the highly acclaimed martial-arts epic directed by Ang Lee (''The Ice Storm,'' ''Sense and Sensibility''), which just has been named the closing night film for the New York Film Festival on Oct. 8 and will open in New York in December.

Although strictly speaking not a Hong Kong film -- it was co-financed by Columbia and Mr. Lee is from Taiwan -- ''Crouching Tiger'' used a Hong Kong production crew and features two of its hottest stars, Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh.

'' 'Crouching Tiger' is a milestone for the local film industry,'' Mr. Barendricht said. ''It's an Asian film with a strong Hong Kong base. That's what this industry is increasingly going to look like.''

Hong Kong films used to be filmed only within the territory and only in Cantonese, which made them difficult to market overseas. Mr. Tong recalled how difficult it was to sell early Jackie Chan movies to American studios. Not until ''Rumble in the Bronx,'' which had dialogue in Chinese and English -- and was putatively set in New York -- did Mr. Chan break through.